There’s a hole in cinema
Theatres are facing lull periods between big-bang film releases. Yet, smaller films aren’t coming. Why?
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After a historic 2023 for cinema halls, this year is looking a little quiet. Most in the business—filmmakers, distributors, exhibitors, and even audiences—have assumed that only big budget action films make money on the big screen. But how many of those can you make in a year? It’s difficult to replicate something like the weekend of last year’s August 10, when Gadar 2, Jailer, and OMG 2 together drove Indian cinema to its highest ever box office collections.
This year, cinemas are already off to a weak start as the flashy, big budget January release Fighter made less money than expected. Now, they are dealing with a lull. Big budget films are releasing in gaps of at least two months between them. In the ordinary course of business, relatively ‘smaller’ or independent films would have plugged such gaps, drawing smaller but paying audiences to promising stories, not big stars.
There’s a hole in cinemas’ film slates. Which begs the question:
Where did the ‘small’ film go?
When Zee Studios first released Joram in cinemas in December last year, the film opened to critical acclaim, although it had a limited release. Starring Manoj Bajpayee, the film depicts the exploitation of India’s indigenous people by our oppressive system, a difficult subject far removed from the breezy glamour and easy nationalism of recent big budget hits.
Then, Joram got another shot at the box office. It was re-released in cinemas in February this year; per producer Zee Studios, fans pushed them to run the film again in theatres. It is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
Joram is the exception, as is Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s 12th Fail, a surprise mid-budget theatrical release that became a hit late last year. But these remain the exception. ‘Content-driven’ films that aren’t led by big stars or mounted on big budgets are struggling to make money in theatres even as OTT platforms shrink their budgets or worse, force these films into loss-making runs at the box office as a precondition for a streaming release.
“I feel when you look at the business of small films, it is extremely shortsighted and definitely incomplete to look at any revenue stream in isolation,” Anupama Bose, Joram’s producer, told The Impression. “Theatrical or OTT sales are a mere part of a much larger pie given that you can monetise a film across several verticals and streams… and for perpetuity.”
Mauli Singh, a Mumbai-based independent film producer and publicist, adds that there are hardly any small or mid-budget independent films with funds for a theatrical release.
When OTT platforms were launched, they became a new lease of life for indie films such as Thithi (2015, Kannada), Soni (2018, Hindi), and Village Rockstars (2017, Assamese, National Award winner).
But now, as platforms cut their budgets and competition dwindles with the merger of Viacom18 and Disney-Star, the options for small films like these are fewer.
“The 2010s were a golden time for such small films because there was an audience that came to theatres for them,” Singh says. “There were programmes to support them such as PVR Director’s Rare. Now there is a definite shift; post-pandemic audiences are not coming to the cinemas like they used to. ”
For most small filmmakers, releasing their work even in a few multiplex screens can be prohibitively expensive. “It can take up to ₹10-30 lakh ($12,000-$36,000) to release a film even in a handful of screens,” Singh explains. “You also need ₹2-3 lakhs to arrange a premiere, and more money for a P&A [print and advertising] budget as well.” For a film made with a couple of crore rupees, this additional cost can be the difference between making a profit or losing money on the project.
Fuzzy crystal ball
The struggle of small budget films isn’t new. But it is compounded by the fact that it’s getting harder to judge what sort of film will strike a chord with an increasingly finicky audience.
“As producers, we are all still trying to understand what the consumer trend is,” Shibasish Sarkar, chairman of IMAC and president of the Producers Guild of India, told The Impression. “Whatever we have learned about audience preferences in the last 30-odd years is not lining up with current reality anymore. Everything has shifted.”
Because of this uncertainty, producers aren’t willing to bet on ‘content driven’ films that come without the safety of a big star. “All the signals of the past 2-2.5 years point to the fact that audiences are not willing to come to theatres for the small or medium films,” Sarkar said. “This is happening in all three major markets: Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu.” Sarkar adds that producers aren’t sure why recent hit films were able to cross ₹300-600 crore in box office collections, while other similar ones were unable to do good business. He also estimates that overall cinema footfalls in India are still 10-15% below 2019 levels, while in the US, the gap is closer to 20%.
This isn’t just a problem for small filmmakers. To solve their persistent footfalls problem, cinemas need to offer more films around the year. Not all of them will be tentpoles that can potentially pull in big crowds.
To address this problem, cinema chains have been relying on stopgap measures instead. Take PVR-Inox for instance. The company introduced a ‘Passport’ programme last year, which allows buyers to watch a set number of films on weekdays for a monthly subscription fee. The idea was to nudge a viewer more frequently into the theatres, hoping it “propelled them to watch the medium and the small scale films,” Gautam Dutta, PVR-Inox’s co-CEO for north and south told investors in a call (pdf) last month. The company is relaunching the product but hasn’t specified a date.
Besides this, PVR-Inox has also been re-releasing older films to boost occupancy on lean weekends. This January, Yash Raj Films announced a ‘Nostalgia Week’, releasing the studio’s older hits in PVR-Inox, Cinepolis, and Miraj Cinemas multiplexes for the competitive price of ₹112 a ticket. This isn’t a new tactic. During Diwali 2020, at the height of pandemic-induced lockdown, Yash Raj Films had a similar week of re-releases in cinemas. In 2022, PVR Cinemas organised a week-long festival to honour actor Amitabh Bachchan, re-releasing his cult classics across theatres.
These festivals are largely confined to a few screens in big cities such as Mumbai and Delhi. “As part of our 'Nostalgic Show' and 'Showcase' initiative, we periodically feature re-releases of retro films, presenting iconic movies to attract new audiences to cinemas,” Sanjeev Kumar Bijli, executive director of PVR Inox told The Impression in an email. “This approach allows younger generations to discover and appreciate timeless films they may have missed.” Bijli added that among the top performing re-releases for the cinema chain were Yeh Jawani Hai Deewani, Jab We Met, and Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge, with over 800 screenings and an average occupancy rate of 35-40%.
But, other producers contend, re-releasing old films is more marketing than actual money.
“Cinemas have been re-releasing old films for a while now. This is a tried-and-tested strategy,” says the head of a large, multilingual production company, requesting anonymity. “At the risk of sounding harsh, this is mere tokenism. Older films like Jab We Met (2006) and Don (1978) are released only in 2-3 screens in a big city like Mumbai, for a total of say, 10 shows. At best, these will sell some 2,500 odd tickets. But it’s great for creating buzz. I make a video and show a hall full of people celebrating a film, and that audiences are back in the cinemas.”
Clearly, there is enough gap in the supply of films to theatres that they are willing to release old favourites, a pandemic-era tactic.
Yet, some mid budget films run for a limited time in theatres because OTT platforms acquiring them demand it. For over a year now, streaming companies have been pegging the price of the films they acquire to their box office collections, making a theatrical run mandatory, even if it is limited to a few screens (read this edition of The Impression to know more).
This might secure the supply of at least some movies whose producers can afford the hefty costs associated with going to the big screen. But with OTT budget cuts and a picky audience, these films may be exhibiting at a loss simply so that they don’t lose out their deals with OTT platforms, their main source of income, film producers told me. That isn’t good business for anyone, whether platforms, small filmmakers, or theatres.
But for the small budget filmmaker, there may be a more optimistic way to look at this. Producers like Bose say that while a short theatrical release isn’t likely to yield profits, it can help extend a film’s shelf life and eventual earnings. Of course, provided the film is not budgeted extravagantly.
“How can a ₹15 crore film recover its money from a two week run across 50 screens with two shows a day? There is no way in hell this math is going to add up, right?” Bose asks. “[This is all to help] build visibility and perception and step up the valuation so that the sales can yield better rates. What you see is what will sell… like in any other industry!”
Note: A previous version of this story misstated the date of Joram’s release and Anupama Bose’s role.
Last Scroll Down📲
Scan the big media headlines from the week gone by
Yanked: TikTok may lose direct control over its biggest, most lucrative market. The US House of Representatives will vote later today on legislation that forces Chinese parent firm ByteDance to divest the short video app in just six months. Early indications are the bill is likely to be passed. ByteDance’s American investors are keeping quiet for risk of being perceived as pro-China.
Hefty haul: Even as Oppenheimer swept the Oscars this year with seven wins, director-producer Christopher Nolan may be taking home just under $100 million in personal earnings, Variety reports.
Garden walls break: Apple will allow app developers in the European Union to distribute their iOS apps in third party stores, but with riders. For example, developers will have to register their websites with Apple to allow their iOS customers to download the app from them. Not quite a break from the walled garden, yet.
God on TV: India’s national broadcaster Doordarshan will air the daily morning prayer or aarti at Ayodhya’s newly-inaugurated Ram Mandir. DD will station a 2-3 member camera crew for the broadcast.
Sora so good: Videos generated by OpenAI’s Sora pilot are so good, most US viewers are unable to tell them apart from human-made art, a survey found. Although Sora is not commercially available yet, its capabilities have spooked technical staff and top executives in Hollywood. Some, such as director-producer Tyler Perry, have shelved plans for a studio.
Trumpet 🎺
Dissecting this week’s viral ‘thing’
The age of the celebrity may be on the wane, but celebrity worship is not. Instead, it seems to be moving from adulation for film and cricket heroes to that for toxic social media stars. Now, celebrities have often been toxic: several Indian film stars have thriving fan bases despite brushes with the law, allegations of sexual assault and/or violence, or other unsavoury controversies.
However, for the social media star, hopping from one unsavoury controversy to another is no longer an inconvenience, but a necessity.
Take controversial YouTuber Siddharth Yadav, aka Elvish Yadav. Yadav is notorious for misogynist, rage-baiting content (a pity, since his fans tend to be young men). He has shared the stage with the (now ex-) chief minister of Haryana. Yadav is being investigated for allegedly distributing snake venom as a recreational drug at a rave party. He is even accused of stealing potted plants from a G20 event in Delhi.
Last week, Yadav was in the news again when a video of him and his friends beating up a fellow YouTuber, Sagar Thakur aka Maxtern, began doing the rounds. Soon enough, Gurgaon Police filed an FIR against Yadav for assault. Yet, just a few days later, both creators posted this photo linked above of them together, promising their fans that they had buried the hatchet in favour of ‘bhaichara’ or brotherhood.
There is speculation that the entire incident was staged to rack up attention and redirect it to a new song Yadav is releasing under a Haryanvi music label he owns. Beating up someone to promote a song isn’t an accepted industry practice but a teaser to the upcoming music video, released this morning, has already racked up nearly 500,000 views (as of 3pm, when this edition was published).
Clearly, Yadav’s tactics work, and it’s safe to assume they will soon be copied or ramped up to even more dangerous levels. When multiple ongoing police investigations don’t seem to deter this social media ‘star’, can we expect other creators to worry about the little things, like being decent human beings and following the law? As the Prime Minister hands out national awards to creators, should we term those like Elvish Yadav—with tens of millions of followers, a music label, and an apparel company—a success story of India’s creator economy?
That’s all this week. If you enjoyed reading The Impression, please share it with your friends, family, and colleagues. And please write to me anytime at soumya@thesignal.co with thoughts, feedback, criticism or anything you’d like to see discussed in this space. I'd love to hear from you.
Thanks for reading, and see you again next Wednesday!